The latest addition to my website is Julien Gracq‘s Un beau ténébreux (A Dark Stranger). This is is Gracq’s second novel, published soon after the war, and after Gracq had spent some time in a German prisoner-of-war camp. The novel is set in a fictitious Breton town, where there is a hotel for well-to-do intellectuals … Read more
Just back from a few days in the Netherlands. Though we visited a few cities, it is The Hague that was most interesting from the literary point of view. As you can see from the photo of the display of new books in a bookshop to the left, there are new books from writers already … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Dušan Šarotar‘s Panorama (Panorama). This is a superb meditative novel, along the lines of the work of W G Sebald and Claudio Magris, though very much of its own kind. It is more poetical work than those, and makes extensive uses of photographs. Our narrator travels to Galway … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yordan Radichkov‘s Les récits de Tcherkaski [Tales from Cherkazki]. As you can see I read the French translation of a selection of these Bulgarian tales. Though there is an English version, it is very hard to obtain. These are linked stories about the Bulgarian village of Cherkazki. The … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Abdulrazak Gurnah‘s Gravel Heart. Salim is a Tanzanian, living in Zanzibar. He lives with his parents but, when he is seven, his father moves out and lives in a small room. He also leaves his job at the water company and works at a market stall. Salim naturally … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Wright Morris‘ Ceremony in Lone Tree. This is a follow-up to his The Field of Vision, but, in my opinion, a much better book. It features much of he same cast but with a few extra, who will, in the second part of the book, attend the eponymous … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Martin Wickramasinghe‘s ගම්පෙරළිය (The Uprooted) Part 1: (The Village). This is the first novel in a trilogy which, though translated into English, is very difficult to obtain in the UK/US. It tells the story of how, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the feudal classes fell into … Read more
The latest addition to my website is June Allison Gibbons‘ The Pepsi-Cola Addict. The novel was published by a vanity press and is now virtually impossible to obtain. June Allison Gibbons and her identical twin, Jennifer, were born on an RAF base in Aden. Their parents were from Barbados. They grew up in the UK, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Claudio Magris‘ Danubio (Danube). This is not really a novel, though Magris himself calls it a drowned novel, and the introduction to my Italian edition calls it part novel/part non-fiction. It describes a journey from the source of the Danube (which is disputed) to its outlet in the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jane Bowles‘ Two Serious Ladies. The story mirrors, to a certain degree, Bowles’ own life and the life of her husband, Paul Bowles. It is also her only completed novel, published when she was twenty-five. It is a decidedly strange novel and got very mixed reviews when first … Read more